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gaza health ministry
Israel Bombs More Gaza Schools, Killing Dozens, Including Many Women and Children
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," said one observer.
Apr 03, 2025
Israeli airstrikes targeted at least three more school shelters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding scores of others on a day when local officials said that more than 100 people were slain by occupation forces.
Gaza's Government Media Office said that at least 29 people—including 14 children and five women—were killed and over 100 others were wounded when at least four missiles struck the Dar al-Arqam school complex in the Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering after being forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled coastal enclave by Israel's 535-day assault.
Al Jazeera reported that "when terrified men, women, and children fled from one school building to another, the bombs followed them," and "when bystanders rushed to help, they too became victims."
A first responder from the Palestine Red Crescent Society—which is reeling from this week's discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of eight of its members, some of whom had allegedly been bound and executed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops—toldAl Jazeera that "we were absolutely shocked by the scale of this massacre," whose victims were "mostly women and children."
Warning: Video contains graphic images of death.
Horrifying scenes following the Dar Al-Arqam School Massacre!#Gaza pic.twitter.com/xOvuq3Zztx
— Dr. Zain Al-Abbadi (@ZainAbbadi11) April 3, 2025
An official from Gaza's Civil Defense, five of whose members were also found in the mass grave on Sunday, said: "What's going on here is a wake-up call to the entire world. This war and these massacres against women and children must stop immediately. The children are being killed in cold blood here in Gaza. Our teams cannot perform their duties properly.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi said that the death toll was likely to rise, as some survivors were critically injured.
Dozens of victims were reportedly trapped beneath rubble of Thursday's airstrikes, but they could not be rescued due to a lack of equipment.
The IDF claimed that "key Hamas terrorists" were targeted in a strike on what it called a "command center." Israeli officials routinely claim—often with little or no evidence—that Palestinian civilians it kills are members of Hamas or other militant resistance groups.
Israel also bombed the nearby al-Sabah school, killing four people, as well as the Fahd School in Gaza City, with three reported fatalities.
Some of the deadliest bombings in the war have been carried out against refugees sheltering in schools, many of them run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—at least 280 of whose staff members have been killed by Israeli forces during the war.
The United Nations Children's Fund has called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. More than 17,500 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Thursday's school bombings sparked worldwide outrage and calls to hold Israel accountable.
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," Australian journalist, activist, and progressive politician Sophie McNeill wrote on social media. "We must sanction Israel now!"
There were other IDF massacres on Thursday, with local officials reporting that more than 100 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn. Al-Wahidi said more than 30 people were killed in strikes on homes in Gaza City's Shejaya neighborhood, citing records at al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that al-Ahli's emergency room "is overwhelmed with casualties and, as is so often the case over the past 18 months, the victims are Gaza's youngest."
Thursday's intensified airstrikes came as Israeli forces pushed into the ruins of the southern city of Rafah. Local and international media reported that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families fled from the area, which Israel said it will seize as part of a new "security zone."
Human rights defenders around the world condemned U.S.-backed killing and mass displacement, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—whose bid to block some sAmerican arms sales to Israel was rejected by the Senate on Thursday—saying: "There is a name and a term for forcibly expelling people from where they live. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is illegal. It is a war crime."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including upward of 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced at least once, and the "complete siege" imposed by Israel has fueled widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and disease.
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Death Toll in Gaza Surpasses 50,000 as Israeli Strikes Persist
"It's displacement under fire," one Gazan said on Sunday.
Mar 23, 2025
Over 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since Israel began its campaign in the enclave, local health officials said Sunday. The grim milestone was reached at the end of a week of deadly strikes by Israeli security forces that upended a fragile cease-fire that went into effect in January.
Gaza's Health Ministry also announced that there have been over 113,200 people injured since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked southern Israel and took roughly 250 people hostage and killed over a thousand others—prompting Israel's fierce and deadly campaign.
On Sunday, Pope Francis, in his first public appearance after weeks of hospitalization, said that he is "saddened by the resumption of heavy Israeli bombing on the Gaza Strip, causing many deaths and injuries."
"I call for an immediate halt to the weapons; and for the courage to resume dialogue, so that all hostages may be released and a final ceasefire reached," he said.
In January, Hamas and Israel agreed to a cease-fire that paused hostilities and saw 25 living Israeli hostages released in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention.
Hamas wanted to open talks for the second phase of the deal, that was supposed to see Israel fully withdraw from the enclave and Hamas release remaining living hostages. Israel instead wanted to impose the terms of a new cease-fire presented by the Trump administration, according to NPR, and refused to hold the talks regarding a permanent end to the war.
Israel commenced bombing Gaza again on Tuesday.
"Israel brazenly resumed its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza killing at least 414 people in their sleep, including 174 children, and again wiping out entire families in a matter of hours. Palestinians in Gaza—who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel’s past attacks—have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment," wrote Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary-general, in a statement on Tuesday.
Since Tuesday, 673 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Sunday update from the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Overnight into Sunday, Israeli strikes hit the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 26 Palestinians, including a Hamas leader and numerous women and children, according to the NPR. The Israeli military ordered people to leave the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah, the outlet reported.
"It's displacement under fire," one Gazan in the city of Rafah toldNPR. "There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult," he said.
The Washington Post also reported Sunday that Israeli political and military leaders are considering plans for a new ground campaign in Gaza that "could include a military occupation of the entire enclave for months or more."
The outlet reported that "the new and more aggressive tactics, according to current and former Israeli officials and others briefed, will probably also include direct military control of humanitarian aid; targeting more of Hamas's civilian leadership; and evacuating women, children, and verified noncombatants from neighborhoods to 'humanitarian bubbles' and laying siege to those who remain—a more intense version of a tactic employed last year in northern Gaza."
Israeli forces also drew condemnation on Friday after bombing the only cancer hospital in the Gaza Strip. Israel Defense Forces troops carried out an airstrike on the abandoned Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor, where the IDF launched what it called a "limited ground operation" earlier this week.
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Palestinians Reclaiming Their Gaza Homes Is a Profound Response to Trump's Ethnic Cleansing Threat
Amid all the talk of ethnic cleansing, Palestinians have remained resolute, with extraordinary scenes unfolding in northern Gaza.
Feb 05, 2025
Since assuming office, US President Donald Trump has relentlessly urged Egypt, Jordan, and other Muslim-majority countries to resettle Palestinians from Gaza.
Although Palestinians have firmly rejected Trump's proposal, it has continued to dominate the front pages of almost every Israeli newspaper.
Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who last year argued that it was "justified and moral" to starve Palestinians in Gaza, has been outspoken in his support of the idea, stating: "After 76 years in which most of Gaza's population was forcibly held in harsh conditions to preserve the aspiration to destroy the State of Israel, the idea of helping them find other places to start a new and better life is a great one."
Yedioth Ahronoth's senior military correspondent, Yossi Yehoshua, has also been a staunch supporter, suggesting: "Perhaps the time has come to adopt Trump's proposal and discuss voluntary exile from Gaza."
On Tuesday, at a joint press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump went a step further and announced the US will be taking over and running Gaza, potentially for the foreseeable future.
Shortly after Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, fears quickly emerged that Israel would execute its undeclared plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the enclave.
Given the high level of support Israel was receiving from its western backers, many of us feared that a similar fate would await Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and, eventually, even those of us living in the lands of historic Palestine seized by Israel in 1948.
There is now a genuine belief that, no matter how dire the situation becomes, the Palestinian people will not disappear
This concern stemmed from a 10-page document issued in October 2023 by Israeli Minister Gila Gamliel's Intelligence Ministry, which proposed forcibly transferring Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Gamliel's document outlined three alternatives for post-war Gaza, with the option "that will yield positive, long-term strategic results" involving the expulsion of Palestinians to Sinai.
On Saturday, foreign ministers and officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab League dismissed Trump's proposal, saying that it would threaten regional stability, spread conflict, and undermine prospects for peace.
"We affirm our rejection of [any attempts] to compromise Palestinians' unalienable rights, whether through settlement activities, or evictions or annexation of land or through vacating the land from its owners," they said in a joint statement.
Even Trump's "favorite dictator," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has voiced dissent, warning that Egyptians would take to the streets to express their disapproval.
Palestinian defiance
Amid all the talk of ethnic cleansing, Palestinians have remained resolute, with extraordinary scenes unfolding in northern Gaza.
Despite the Israeli army flattening entire neighborhoods—destroying residential buildings, health and educational facilities, and critical infrastructure - hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have continued to stream north.
The image of an 80-year-old man walking back to his home in northern Gaza after being displaced in the south evokes memories of the Nakba, when hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes due to Zionist militias and armed gangs.
But this time, the scene and mood are not ones of despair. There is now a genuine belief that, no matter how dire the situation becomes, the Palestinian people will not disappear.
As a result, Israeli media has gone into a complete meltdown, with many lamenting the scenes of Palestinian defiance.
Channel 13's political correspondent, Moriah Asraf, recently expressed: "These images make me shiver all over my body…Something about the Gazans returning to their homes, albeit destroyed, but to their homes - it drives me crazy."
Matan Zuri, a security correspondent for Ynet,wrote: "Thousands of Palestinians have returned to the devastated northern Gaza Strip. The dream of renewed Jewish settlement has faded for the time being…This is the price of ending the war and returning the hostages. We knew it would happen, we saw it coming, and there was no choice but to accept it with submission and stick to the goodness of the deal."
Whatever happens next is anyone's guess, but the image of Palestinians returning to what remains of their bombed-out homes has been the most powerful response yet to Trump's racist and dehumanzing plan.
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